life I'm leadin'. I'll go to my grave
widout ever batin' a man, or bein' bate myself; that's the vexation.
Divil the row ever I was able to kick up in my life; so that I'm fairly
blue-mowlded for want of a batin'. But if you have patience----"

"Patience!" said Mr. O'Connor, with a shake of the head, that was
perfectly disastrous even to look at; "patience, did you say, Neal?"

"Ay," said Neal, "an', be my sowl, if you deny that I said patience,
I'll break your head!"

"Ah, Neal," returned the other, "I don't deny it--for though I am
teaching philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics, every day in my life,
yet I'm learning patience myself both night and day. No, Neal; I have
forgotten to deny anything. I have not been guilty of a contradiction,
out of my own school, for the last fourteen years. I once expressed
the shadow of a doubt about twelve years ago, but ever since I have
abandoned even doubting. That doubt was the last expiring effort at
maintaining my domestic authority--but I suffered for it."

"Well," said Neal, "if you have patience, I'll tell you what afflicts me
from beginnin' to endin'."

"I will have patience," said Mr. O'Connor, and he accordingly heard a
dismal and indignant tale from the tailor.

"You have told me that fifty times over," said Mr. O'Connor, after
hearing the story. "Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life. If
you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current
of your existence to some purpose. Marry a wife. For twenty-five years I
have given instructions in three branches, viz.--philosophy, knowledge,
and mathematics--I am also well versed in matrimony, and I declare that,
upon my misery, and by the contents of all my afflictions, it is my
solemn and melancholy opinion, that, if you marry a wife, you will,
before three months pass over your concatenated state, not have a single
complaint to make touching a superabundance of peace and tranquillity,
or a love of fighting."

"Do you mean to say that any woman would make me afeard?" said the
tailor, deliberately rising up and getting his cudgel. "I'll thank you
merely to go over the words agin till I thrash you widin an inch o' your
life. That's all."

"Neal," said the schoolmaster, meekly, "I won't fight; I have been too
often subdued ever to presume on the hope of a single victory. My spirit
is long since evaporated: I am like one, of your own shreds, a mere
selvage. Do you not know how much my habiliments